


Hand Wash Only

by LogicGunn



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossdressing, Established Relationship, M/M, Panties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24760039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicGunn/pseuds/LogicGunn
Summary: It’s so late on a Sunday night that it might actually be Monday morning when Rodney answers his door and tells John to “Fuck off, Colonel.” It’s the ‘Colonel’ that clues John into the fact that Rodney’s genuinely pissed more than the ‘fuck off’; he’s been ‘John’ for months now, ever since their first tentative kiss in the infirmary after a mission gone badly wrong.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 16
Kudos: 96





	Hand Wash Only

It’s so late on a Sunday night that it might actually be Monday morning when Rodney answers his door and tells John to “Fuck off, Colonel.” It’s the ‘Colonel’ that clues John into the fact that Rodney’s genuinely pissed more than the ‘fuck off’; he’s been ‘John’ for months now, ever since their first tentative kiss in the infirmary after a mission gone badly wrong. John bangs on Rodney’s door –  _ Rodney! Let me in! _ – but gives up after a while, well aware that he’s probably disturbing the other occupants of the corridor when they should all be fast asleep. Sullenly, he turns and walks back down the corridor to the transporter, lets it take him back to his own quarters where Rodney abandoned his clean clothes on the bed and spends the rest of the night folding laundry and trying to figure out what he did wrong. 

They’d spent the night together in his room. Rodney had gotten up criminally early with some kind of epiphany and rushed off to the labs, leaving John curled up in bed until his alarm went off at 0530 for his morning run. The only time they’d really spoken all day was when Rodney said he was going to do laundry while he waited for some simulation to run and did John want him to do his too? It had been perfectly amicable, no snippy remarks, no heated comments, nothing but ‘laundry’ and ‘see you tonight’. John can’t think of anything he said that would warrant Rodney’s outburst. 

In the morning, when it finally comes, Rodney doesn’t sit with the team at breakfast. He grabs a tray and takes it out onto the balcony to sit with Doctors Zelenka and Kusanagi. If they’re surprised by his presence, John can’t tell from so far away, but Ronon and Teyla don’t miss a beat. 

“What’s up with McKay?” asks Ronon, turning in his seat to watch Rodney sit down with his back to them. 

“I don’t know,” replies John, stabbing his bacon. “He probably has some super-secret science stuff to discuss.” 

Teyla raises an eyebrow over her mug but says nothing. There’s no one more attuned to people’s emotions, but she’s content to take a step back when it comes to John and Rodney’s relationship, allowing them to make their own mistakes and learn from them instead of protecting them from themselves. Sometimes, like now, John resents her for it. He shoves a whole rasher of bacon in his mouth to stop himself confessing last night’s events and is relieved when Major Lorne radios him about a fracas in the gym. 

“Got to go,” says John. He tidies away his half-eaten breakfast and rushes out of the mess hall as fast as he can without actually running, feeling his teammates eyes on the back of his head as he tries not to look desperate.

Rodney avoids everyone for the next few days. Either he’s eating in the mess at obscure hours or he’s hoarding some MREs because every time John goes for a meal he’s not there. Whenever he drops by the  labs he’s informed that Rodney’s gone to some isolated part of the city to fix something, but by the time he arrives at the specified location Rodney’s long gone. John starts to suspect that Zelenka is in on it. He tries to corner Rodney in his room a few times, late at night when he should be in bed, but even when he overrides the lock and steps in there’s no sign that Rodney was even there. He sees Rodney occasionally in the corridors, but by the time he catches up he's vanished into a transporter or down a corridor. (On one memorable occasion Rodney vanishes down a dead end with no doors and John still can’t figure out where he went. It’s like the city itself is complicit in his evasion.)

John starts to get desperate come Friday; five days of the cold shoulder with no goddamned explanation have him pacing in his room, swinging from righteous fury –  _ where does Rodney get off on messing him around like this _ – to self-recrimination, knowing that he’s done something so terrible that even Rodney can’t forgive, if only he knew what it was. God knows that John has an exceptionally poor history when it comes to relationships, fucking things up royally on a number of occasions and that doesn’t even include his failed marriage. He thought he was doing just fine this time around though. Rodney’s fun to be around, easy to love, their back and  forths are spirited but harmless and he’s found it easy to stick to the golden rules: don’t cheat, show trust, make time, don’t withdraw when something gets emotional. That Rodney’s withdrawn from him with no quarter really hurts, and he knows it’s showing in everything that he does. He’s too sharp with his men, too closed-off with Elizabeth, and he starts to feel angry with himself for letting Rodney get close enough to slip behind his walls and tear him down from the inside out. He should have known a relationship with him would be trouble. 

There’s one thing, though, one tiny little thing that he can do to calm himself. He doesn’t do it often, the repercussions if he gets caught are almost always enough to deter him, but Rodney’s thrown him for a loop, sent his brain into overdrive and brought out the worst qualities in him as a man and as a leader. He opens his underwear drawer slowly, reaches into the very back and searches for his objective by touch. His hands find the smooth silk, and he takes a deep, relaxing breath as he pulls them out. He’s had them for a long time, longer than he’s been in the air force, as far back as his late teens when he stopped borrowing his girlfriend’s and bought this own. He was brave back then, reckless and headstrong with a devil-may-care attitude and an impressive credit limit thanks to the family wealth. He bought them around Valentine's day when the lingerie shop windows were full of heart-shaped balloons and cupid decals, the sales assistants primed and ready to help the hapless boyfriends and husbands looking for something sexy for their female partners. 

John wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, which is probably what spurred him on to go shopping for his own. He told the assistant that his ‘girlfriend’ sometimes wore his jeans to get the right size, that she would like something pretty but classy, something with lace but still comfortable, something that she could wear for more than five minutes without wanting to take them off. The assistant (her name was Jodi with an  i ) brought a selection of the most beautiful underwear he’d ever seen, bikini briefs and high cut panties in silks and satins, with delicate lace and hand- tied bows. She’d explained in great detail the benefits of each style, the pros and cons of each fabric type. He settled on a pair of black silk hipster briefs with lace panelling at the hips and a tiny little bow in the centre. They were nearly a hundred dollars, handwash only and ‘guaranteed to be something his girlfriend could wear all day in comfort’. He paid cash, not wanting his father to query the expense on the monthly credit card bill, and let Jodi wrap them in red tissue paper and an extravagant gift bag, hoping that his jeans hid the fact that he was at half-mast just looking at them. He didn’t wear them for months, hid the bag in the back of his wardrobe, only taking them out in the middle of the night to press the soft silk to his skin, prolonging the anticipation of the moment when he would finally slide into them. (The first time he put them on, he came inside of a second and had to spend the morning in a library, looking for a book that could tell him exactly how to hand-wash genuine silk.) 

When he presses the silk to the inside of his arm, he starts to calm down, the rapid thump of his heartbeat slowing to something more manageable and his swirling thoughts arranging into some semblance of order. He strips off his pants and boxers and steps into the panties, pulls them up, feeling the lace catch in leg hair and push it the wrong way. He settles them over his hips, reaches in and adjusts himself until the silk cups him snugly, then puts his pants back on over the top. The waist of the panties is low and his BDUs cover them just fine, but there’s always the chance, however small, that he will twist the wrong way or bend just that bit too far and the lace will become visible. That’s why he does this so rarely, but with Rodney acting up and him not handling it very well, he needs something, anything, to help him regain his control. He wears them all weekend, washing them each night and laying them gently on the sink to dry when he sleeps, and it helps him settle into himself, but it doesn’t solve the problem of an absent and furious Rodney. 

The last straw comes when Rodney sends Zelenka in his stead to Monday’s department meeting, claiming that he’s “far too busy” to attend. John sits and smiles through the meeting when Elizabeth lets it slide, listening to the updates from medical and science, adding his own report at the end and reiterating that yes, the civilians still need to keep up with weapons training and no, not being on a gate-team doesn’t exempt anybody. He makes up his mind as Elizabeth brings the meeting to a close. Rodney’s got to go back to his room  _ sometime _ . If he wants to catch him, he’s going to have to stake it out. He grabs his laptop, checks in with Lorne and heads to Rodney’s quarters, breaking in with a thought and settling on a chair in the corner, ready to spend the rest of the day writing up reports in peace until Rodney deigns to show his face. 

It’s still early in the afternoon when the door opens and Rodney walks in. He dumps his laptop on the dresser absentmindedly and flings himself onto his stomach on the bed, closing his eyes and turning his face towards John. John takes a moment to just look at the man that’s been avoiding him for a week, takes in the dark circles and red-rimmed eyes, the ghostly pallor and the hollowed cheeks, and feels his anger dissolve. Rodney’s had just as shitty a week as he has. He gently places the laptop on the desk and stands. Rodney doesn’t hear him, doesn’t stir, must be half asleep already. 

“Rodney?” whispers John. 

Rodney squawks, and jumps up out of the bed, flinging his back against the wall and reaching for a sidearm that’s locked away in the armoury five floors up. For a moment John feels inordinately proud. “What the fuck, Colonel!” 

“We have to talk,” says John, then winces. Those are words he never thought would come out of his mouth, words that have killed every relationship he’s ever had up till this point. 

“No. No, we do not,” snaps Rodney. “I think I’ve made myself perfectly clear. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m not interested in excuses and apologies. Go away.” 

“No.” 

“Get out!” shouts Rodney, and John feels his own desperation build up. 

“No! Not until you tell me what I’ve done.” 

“You know exactly what you’ve done,” growls Rodney. “Don’t you dare play dumb with me.” 

“Rodney-” 

“No. Either you leave or I do.” 

“Rodney. Please. You can’t just- I need-” 

“Fuck you. You can’t come in here making demands of me.” 

“Please.” 

Rodney folds his arms, looking down at John’s feet. “I know that you’re cheating on me,” he says quietly. John’s speechless, this is so far from what he was expecting Rodney to say. Rodney looks up, mouth twisted dangerously. “See? You can’t even deny it!” 

“Rodney, I’m not, I would never-” 

“You asshole, don’t you dare-” 

“I would  _ never! _ I swear, whoever told you that was lying, Rodney.” 

“No one told me.” 

“Then why on earth do you...” Oh, shit. The laundry. 

“I found her underwear in your drawer when I was putting your clothes away. Don’t you dare deny it. I can’t believe you!” 

“Rodney, that’s not...it’s not what it looks like, I swear.” 

“They were black and silky and lacy, Colonel. I’m not an idiot, don’t treat me like one.” 

“Rodney it’s not-” 

“Get out.” 

“Wait.” 

“Leave!” 

John knows that if he walks out that door, he’ll never be allowed to come back again; if he doesn’t fix this right now then Rodney will leave him for good, and no apologies or explanations will get him back. He unzips his BDUs. Rodney’s arms fall from his chest, and his eyes widen as he sucks in an indignant breath, but John ignores him and pushes his pants down to his knees. 

“Look,” he says, knowing that he finally has Rodney’s complete attention. Rodney looks. Blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes it again. John can see the wheels turning in his head, his anger dissolving as he adds one and one and gets two point five. 

“Gender dysphoria?” 

“No.” 

“Transvestitism?” 

“No.” 

“Skirts, dresses?” 

“No.” 

“Just the panties.” 

“Yes.” 

“How long?” 

“Always.” 

“Sex or comfort?” 

“Both.” 

“Right now?” 

“I’ve been wearing them all weekend. You tell me.” 

“You’re not cheating on me.” 

“No.” 

“And this is a...proclivity.” 

_ “Rodney.” _

“No, really, we’re going to talk about this. Because all fucking week I’ve been convinced that you were seeing some...some  _ woman  _ behind my back. I’ve been angry and hurt and...I get that I’m not great about expressing things, but I think it’s obvious that I’m pretty invested in you and me, so I’d appreciate it if you could force out some kind of an explanation. Whole sentences if you can manage it, but I’ll settle for sporadic words if you can’t.” 

“It’s just...just the panties. I’m not...I’m not a woman, or...it just feels...I like it. A lot. It feels good. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, the very last thing I wanted was to hurt you, I was just...scared you wouldn’t-” 

“Wouldn’t want to be with you anymore?” 

John swallows. “Yeah.” 

“Did you really think half a cubic meter of silk and lace would change anything between us?” 

John doesn’t answer that, can’t, because that’s exactly what he thought. 

“I see.” Rodney strides over to John and whacks him on the back of his head. As far as reactions go it’s mild. “You’re the biggest idiot on the planet, you know that? How could you think I would find this anything other than totally hot?” 

“You-” 

“Take off the rest of your clothes,” Rodney growls. “But leave them on.” 

John’s mouth drops open and he hesitates, years of hiding difficult to overrule. 

“Well?” says Rodney. “Some time today!” 

He’s serious. Rodney’s seriously... _ holy shit. _ John kicks off his boots, flinging them over to the other side of the room as he tries to step out of his pants, heart pounding in his chest. Rodney just stands there and watches him struggle. He kicks them off, finally, reaches to lift up his t-shirt, but Rodney holds out his hand and says “Wait.” He pauses, shirt raised as Rodney scrutinises him, and starts to panic, thinking that Rodney’s changed his mind. 

“Leave the t-shirt on,” says Rodney quietly. 

John drops his arms down, hands fisting at his sides, standing there in his t-shirt and panties, braced on the knife-edge between humiliation and arousal. He’s never felt so vulnerable before; Rodney could do a lot of damage with this knowledge, could ruin his reputation, his career, his life. He closes his eyes to hide from Rodney’s gaze, hands clenched so tight he can feel his nails digging into his palms. He starts at the sudden feel of Rodney’s hand on his stomach, the soft slide as it pushes under the t-shirt, catches on the panties, Rodney’s fingertips curling under the elastic. They pull out, then two hands are on his hips, pushing him gently back until he stumbles into the wall behind him. 

“Look at me,” whispers Rodney, and John opens his eyes to see Rodney’s face, wide-eyed in wonder, flushed and breathless, radiating arousal and affection. He lets out a breath he didn’t notice he was holding on to, and Rodney leans in, pressing his lips to John’s ever so softly, and he’s trembling so hard that John can feel it. John realises that neither of them is in control here, that for all Rodney’s bravado he’s just as exposed and defenceless as he is. 

Rodney sinks slowly to his knees, hands still gripping John’s hips, hot breath seeping in through the panties to warm his skin, and John’s head  thunks back against the wall as his hips stutter forward, seeking friction. When Rodney mouths him through the silk he cries out once, loud and desperate, and he comes so fast and hard his knees start to buckle. He barely notices as one of Rodney’s hands leaves his hip, the other digging in painfully, until Rodney moans out loud, lapping at the damp spot on the fabric. John looks down, sees Rodney  stroking himself urgently, and John wants to say stop, wait, let me, but Rodney cries out and stills, shuddering against his thigh then leans his forehead against John’s leg, breathless. 

Feeling brave, John runs his fingers through Rodney’s hair, gently scratching his scalp as he recovers. After a few moments, Rodney kisses John’s stomach and stands, braces his hands on the wall either side of John’s shoulders. Something passes between them as John holds Rodney’s gaze, something profound but nameless, and they both smile tentatively as they catch their breath. 

“I, uh-” begins John, but he has absolutely no idea what to say. 

“Bed?” asks Rodney, and John nods and lets himself be pushed down onto the mattress. Rodney lies next to him, touches his face with his fingertips in reverence, passing over his brow, his cheekbone, across his lips. John kisses them lightly, feels them slide down to his neck, his shoulder, then grip onto his bicep. 

“That was-” begins John. “I-” 

“Yeah,” says Rodney. “Me too.” 

“I’ve never...” 

Rodney lifts his head, surprised. “Never?” 

“I mean...Nancy...she knew...I told her...but we never...she tolerated it but she...wasn’t interested.” 

“Oh. Well, that was a waste.” 

“Rodney.” 

“No, really, it’s no wonder you got divorced.” 

John snorts out a laugh. “You’re so-” 

“Honest?” 

“Rude.” 

“Yes, well.” Rodney tucks his head back into John’s shoulder. “I never said I wasn’t.” 

“So this is...you know...okay?” 

“Are you kidding? I will buy you an entire drawer full of women’s unmentionables in every colour of the rainbow if it makes you happy.” 

John ducks his head, inordinately pleased by Rodney’s offer. He doesn’t need an entire drawer full, but knowing Rodney would do that takes away the last of his doubts and fears. He’s never been able to share this with anyone before, it’s unfamiliar territory, but Rodney is nothing if not honest about his likes and dislikes and John has no  doubt he means exactly what he says.

“But seriously,” continues Rodney. “We’re  gonna need a secret code.”

“A what?”

“Like if we’re in a staff meeting and you’re wearing them I want to know. You should wiggle your eyebrows twice or something. Oh my god, have you ever worn them in a staff meeting? Sitting right next to me? And I didn’t know? Oh, that is so hot.”

“Rodney, Jesus.”

“Do you wear them on missions? Flying the jumper? In the gym? If you wear them when you’re fighting with  Teyla I might actually die from the hotness.”

John rolls his eyes. “Okay, buddy, I think that’s enough.” He pushes up off the bed, still listening to Rodney babble, and offers his hand. Rodney takes it, lets John pull him up, and keeps talking while John strips him and guides him into the bathroom and under the showerhead. 

“-but seriously, what was Nancy thinking, not getting in on that? Because I-”

John pulls off the panties and rinses them under the cold tap while Rodney chatters on, setting them to soak for a few minutes while they bathe. If he’s lucky he might get a word in edgeways when Rodney pauses for effect, but he’s not going to hold his breath.


End file.
